One might suppose that the market fundamentalists who have been running successive UK governments since Thatcher would know a thing or two about markets. Specifically one would think that they could ensure that a given market was reasonably efficient and competitive.
Unfortunately this is clearly not so in relation to the railways as a small piece in yesterday’s FT reports:
The Competition Commission has found that conditions imposed by the government on companies that lease carriages to the train operators are stifling competition… [This] will come as a blow to the government’s management of the private rail network.
The Dept of Transport has apparently complained that overcharging costs as much as £177 million pa out of rolling stock leasing costs of circa £1 billion much of which is funded by taxpayer subsidies.
This really isn’t good enough
